I tell stories from life fragments -
arranging reality flat upon the page
until it shows signs of order.
Recently, the process has been here in this public space.

Saturday, July 18, 2009

a mad chemist's dissection of the elements

This is the second work in a series of darker themed pieces that I will be concentrating on for a bit. The first completed piece drew loosely from the works of E. A. Poe. A future piece, in the designing phase, is based on Kafka's 'Metamorphosis'.

The inspiration for this piece comes mostly from the various 'noir' movements in film, including stop motion animation. I attempted to make the piece work on more than one scale. The feature photo was shot so that at first glance the pendant could be the size of a large animal cage sitting in the middle of a rain soaked road. This piece continues with experimenting with natural decay as a primary element of design. The idea is to present somewhat ordinary items well along on the continuum of what they were, to what they are becoming. There is a conscience effort to not have any given element overpower the overall 'mundane feel' of the completed project. I wrote in detail about that process here. The piece can appear dismal to some. Hopeless. It was not designed as a nihilistic statement, but rather a tangible manifestation of an emotion that we can hold in our hand. The sound of blues music that you can feel between the fingers.

I have quite a few sketches of addition pieces with the same influence and 'feel', but I have got some major tech/mechanical issues to solve. Once I overcome the technical issues, I plan to add some mixed media elements into this style. This is one of the primary directions we plan to take with our future work.